Chinese Rocket Disintegrates Over Western USA

The body of China's experimental Long March 7 rocket re-entered Earth's atmosphere on Wednesday night, July 27th, around 9:38 p.m. Pacific Time, creating a bright fireball over the western USA. The glowing trail was spotted in Utah, Nevada and much of California.

The re-entry signaled the Long March 7's return from one month in space. It began its mission on June 25, 2016, in a night launch from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island off China's southern coast. The flight tested new technologies essential to China's developing space program. The Long March 7 is expected to play a key role in the construction of a Chinese space station planned for the decades ahead.

Chinese Rocket Disintegrates Over Western USA

I saw several ATSers responding to a post about this last night and this morning. Here's the official explanation. I wish I could've seen it, sounds spectacular from the descriptions!

It was spectacular.

HERE is the other thread to which you were referring. I also linked there an article similar to the one you quoted. Phage of course nailed it on page one. Heheh.

a reply to: M4nWithNoN4me

Damn, missed it. Was walking my dog , too. Eastern Sierra...Further East, Utah...

It's a shot over the bow. Stepping up their game.

If only they could have set it up to come down for July 4th! All the other fireworks are from there anyways. It'd be brilliant marketing!

And no one sees a problem with this?

originally posted by: boredhere74
And no one sees a problem with this?

No. It's part of their space program, not military, and we've known all about it for quite some time.

originally posted by: boredhere74
And no one sees a problem with this?

It was the upper stage of a rocket which will be used to launch satellites. The first stage fell into the Pacific Ocean after launch on June 25, and China published a warning which included the stage's expected impact zone at that time. As you can read here at Spaceflgith Now, it is more difficult to predict exactly when and where the upper stages of rockets will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere; however, the stage was tracked by the US military's Joint Space Operations Center, whose job it is to monitor these things, and a notice was issued several hours before re-entry took place.

These things happen all the time (25 re-entries of objects massing greater than 1 ton so far in 2016). It just usually happens in places where there are fewer people and cameras.

Tbh, I didn't read much into the background of this, but why are the Chinese building their own space station? The article might not be fully accurate so whatever although it's curious as to why all space travel is not fully collaborative. It makes me wonder if we're going to take our battles into different regions of the solar system because as of now we have shown that many of these feats are overly linked to national pride.

BTW, stuff like this reminds of how valuable NASA really is. None of this is possible without them. The greatest group of explorers in human history. The first people to bring the colonization of the universe into reality. This rocket is just another small step towards our goal.

originally posted by: boredhere74
And no one sees a problem with this?

Considering how much of our space trash falls all over the planet? No. We're not so speshul as to be the only country with the right to launch anything into orbit, and no one's boasting any telekinetic abilities to land debris on a pinhead. So again, answer is no.

Ladies and Gentlemen another successful deployment of our orbital #### ###### ,OF course they have HAD it up there for some time but NOW that China has intercepted a satellite we are beginning a NEW arms race...no wonder Russia's OUR BUDDY now, they remember the the last one. THE USAF SMF will be securing or orbital operations.
MUCH more expensive that a few more tanks and planes... to operate in space.
They will be lookng for astronauts shortly.


"It might involve the development of more offensive space weapons"

a reply to: cavtrooper7




Just a quick vid.

WE NOW have a full fledged COLD WAR,looks like they want China more than Russia.

a reply to: BrokedownChevy

I 'M very sorry ,you are correct. www.defenseone.com...

originally posted by: BrokedownChevy
Tbh, I didn't read much into the background of this, but why are the Chinese building their own space station? The article might not be fully accurate so whatever although it's curious as to why all space travel is not fully collaborative. It makes me wonder if we're going to take our battles into different regions of the solar system because as of now we have shown that many of these feats are overly linked to national pride.

China is building their own space station in part as a prestige project and in part to do research, most of it probably related to the effects of space travel on the human body and probably broadly similar to the research being done on the ISS. This isn't to suggest that they don't have military ambitions for space - they certainly do - but those ambitions are much better served using unmanned satellites, not manned space stations.

One reason why space travel isn't more fully collaborative is that China is prevented by US law from participating as a partner nation in the International Space Station. Which is, frankly, silly. China wouldn't need access to any classified American technology to send spacecraft or modules to the ISS - the docking system is a clone of the one the Russians use, so that's not a problem.

Another article notes that the Russians are contemplating leaving the ISS project in 2024. That would be a problem, as the US would then need to be responsible for all crew transfers and most of the cargo (though the Japanese HTV might be continuing to take care of some of that in the mid-2020s). Bringing China on as partner would give China, the US, and other partner nations a positive project to work together on and help alleviate some of the financial and practical burden if Russia does pull out of the ISS sometime in the next decade.

originally posted by: AdmireTheDistance

originally posted by: boredhere74
And no one sees a problem with this?

No. It's part of their space program, not military, and we've known all about it for quite some time.

Still should have shot it down with a rail gun to prove to them the point not to walk there dog on your lawn.

originally posted by: LABTECH767

originally posted by: AdmireTheDistance

originally posted by: boredhere74
And no one sees a problem with this?

No. It's part of their space program, not military, and we've known all about it for quite some time.

Still should have shot it down with a rail gun to prove to them the point not to walk there dog on your lawn.

Again, if you read the links above, the rocket stage in orbit decayed naturally, and most of it burned up during re-entry. These things happen all the time. Even if what you are describing as actually possible - and railguns are still a long way from being practical weapons, let alone being able to hit an object which is tumbling on its way out of orbit - it would be extremely hostile to shoot the stage down.

a reply to: PhloydPhan

The US military usually keep's any game changing technology such as the for example rumour's of field testing of EMP emiiters in the Iraq conflict secret for a very long time.

The way it work's is if you publicly admit to having something or make it too obvious that you do then even if your counter espionage wing has worked more than overtime to keep that secret your competitors and potential enemy's will seek to get in on the act as fast as they can.

The whole idea of the nuclear weapon (Which was mostly developed by British scientists by the way, we were about two years ahead of the German's but they were catching up before there heavy water plant's were taken out and then our expert's all moved to the state's whom had the resources we lacked - but were actually far behind in there research before this sharing-giving of expertise and research just to educate you a little, somewhat like the Frank Whittle jet engine, idiot's in the brass ignored it's potential or we may have had a fighter aircraft ready for deployment in the battle of Britain and essentially they let the German's steal the march on them by starving whittle in the 30's of the funding he needed, our radar was superior to the German's and ahead of the US at the time but I digress back to the present), the whole idea of having nuclear weapon's after the second world war was to keep the peace, the US was seen as the best and safest hand's to keep control of them and had the Russian's not also gained them (which some academic's believed was necessary since the early cold war had already begun but not yet heated up to full cold war level's and some US generals were already starting to sabre rattle), the idea of having them was in order to KEEP GLOBAL PEACE, to DETER and to PREVENT future conflict's, they were never intended to be used after the effect's of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were observed even though historically it WAS the right thing to do at the time or else hundred's of thousands of more US and Allied service personnel would have lost there lives, also you know about the German jet fighter technology having been shipped to Japan and the Japanese military having began construction on underground airfield's since surrender was not in there mentality.

This is similar but the lesson of the loss of the nuclear secret's to Russia has been learned, the US navy has been developing and testing a hypersonic rail gun - ship mounted for the past 20+ years, in truth this is a small mobile unit and all those DUMB's should give you a clue as to what a full sized mile or more long vaccuum acceleration system is capable of doing and were it may be placed to provide an anti missile defence system, and you must recognize how it can move it's payload faster than the seven time's the speed of sound level's of the publicly demonstrated model version which was still capable of demolishing the top of a mountain.

So what I am saying is that it IS possible and indeed MORE than probable that they US military or rather the Black Budget military (though there allegiance is questionable - are they answerable to the US government who are forced to fund them or are they a wing of the MIC) DO already have them and have had them for a long time, Nasa looked into magentic acceleration and it is a very old idea for launching payloads by using ground based acceleration systems rather than rocket's, it was deemed too expensive but of course given the nearly unlimited fund's and the directives set out by the regan initiated SDI endeavour I feel strongly that if they had not already used such a system in testing (It is actually practical but it also has to be said that superconductors and magnetic acceleration have come a long way since the early science fiction concepts' of the 1920's and 1930's.) then they certainly would have developed one after.

Look you launch a payload into orbit and it is horrendously expensive, wasteful of resources and light's up the launch like a flair for all the world to see.

Take some stealth technology, not the light wate stuff used for planes as it is probably not resillant enough but tough heavy duty radar absorbtion, wrap it around a payload you wish to inject into orbit, take a magneto acceleration system, attenuate the launch length used and the power to the magnetic acceleration system and wait until it is dark and overcast while still maintaining observation of the obeserving satelliates then launch your payload into orbit with it's positional rockets turned off until it is in the correct position in orbit and only use them when and if they are needed, your payload can site silently or even use highly directional microwave signal's to traditionally positioned satellites to communicate with the ground and so it is radio silent as far as any potential enemy is concerned, they can not detect it with radar as it is probably both optically hard to detect, compact and relatively small with radar absorbing material in its hull while it can both watch and interact with your enemy's/competitor's asset's at your discretion.

Also the US has developed plasma technology, it is not like the science fiction version plasma is a state were matter is between gas and solid but not liquid, of course a typical shaped charge uses plasma to burn through armor plating so in that respect plasma technology has been around for a long time but I am talking about directed plasma technology and it is also concievable that someone in there R&D has worked to put an effective plasma projecting rail gun into development and early prototype state and that they did so a good ways in the past so how developed that tech is, well that is another matter but I believe they have a viable weapon system and once again the Regan Star Wars initiative would have been the spur to put this old idea into development.

Now let me reitorate the rail gun I am talking about would be about a mile or more long and build underground invisible from above except for a small aperture which is easy to hide, the aiming could be provided by flaring the end of the accelerator and using variance in the extremely powerful magnets to alter the exit trajectory of the accelerated projectile/payload/plasma, a facility could concievably have several of them, Most DUMB's are probably not such facility's but it is more than concievable that several of them strategically placed to intercept likely missile flight path's are.


Now remember this is tiddy little one for public consumption and not what they really have.

nationalinterest.org...
Now for some older civilian application's, theoretical of course.
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.launchpnt.com...
(have you had a look at are 51, there are rail or mono rail type line's that seem to terminate in concealed underground entrances, they do not reach a ramp but that is not to say that a ramp was not there when and if they were used to trial this method.

A plasma Rail gun would look a lot more like a mass accelerator but would not be as flimsy as such a device as Cern and it would accelerate to a lower speed but it WOULD accelerate more than a few particles, in fact it would accelerate a mass of plasma.